After her husband was medically retired from the Marine Corps in 2015, Patricia Ochan set aside her career as a lawyer with a cybersecurity degree to become a full-time caregiver to her husband while raising their young child.

Military spouse unemployment is a serious problem for the 641,639 people who are married to active-duty service members. Nearly half of those significant others are unemployed, according to a new study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released on June 14.

It takes guts to pitch a business idea to an intimidating group of celebrity investors on national television. But it takes grit — and, of course, a distinctively innovative concept — to win them over. Lisa Bradley and Cameron Cruse did just that in February, when they walked away with a $100,000 investment from Mark Cuban on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Their proposal: to employ hundreds of U.S. military spouses to make gorgeous, artisanal, 100% American handmade bags from recycled military surplus materials.

Deployments are a fact of life for most military families. While each one is uniquely challenging and no two deployments are the same, some experiences are universal. Here are some of my deployment observations that I am confident my fellow military spouses understand.